“The Scene Is Set” by Rose LennardPosted by Rattle
Image: “Zaubererturm” by Jennifer S. Lange. “The Scene Is Set” was written by Rose Lennard for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “‘The Scene is Set’ is masterfully composed in every way–the flawless rhymes, the fluid cadence, the depth of meaning. Lennard’s descriptions of Jennifer S. Lange’s piece are both visually and acoustically striking: ‘vine-wound, cloud-capped, tall ships marooned.’ The poet references ‘shades of myth,’ a fitting interpretation of ‘Zaubererturm’ and its soft, subtle invocation of fairytale and folklore. There’s an otherwordly quality to the image, interpreted by the poet as a different kind of reality (‘time slows … reflections warp…horizons bend …’). The poem’s ending, and its depiction of a temporal, illusory world, feels like a perfect homage to a gorgeously enigmatic work of art.”
Donald Platt: “I write to shape into some cogent form the random experiences that life has afforded me. The story of passing my written doctoral exams while being handicapped by a weak bladder, only slightly exaggerated for comic effect, has been waiting for reincarnation in a poem for almost three decades. The anecdote of being so tired that I thought I was being questioned about ‘Barthes’ britches’ in my oral exam is, unfortunately, true. But this humorous material needed to discover a serious counterpart to make a true poem. Of course, that ballast was ‘prosopopoeia,’ the universal urge to talk with our dead again and have them reply to us. The turn to my dead brother Michael at the end of the poem came as a genuine surprise, but also—in retrospect—as an inevitability. To be given such an ending is to receive a kind of grace from some source outside the self, perhaps from the dead themselves.”
Garnet Juniper Nelson: “A century after publication, an image of the poem ‘When You Meet a Member of the Ku Klux Klan’ made waves on the internet. It was written by Robert L. Poston, one of the leaders of the Black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association alongside Marcus Garvey, and was originally published in the association’s weekly newspaper. The poem directly advocates for violence against KKK members. I have no qualms with the piece, but it made me curious how a contemporary poem might address issues of liberation involving my own community. So remember, if a man with a suspiciously manicured beard—or anyone else who purports to know it all—asks ‘What is a woman?’ the answer is simple: there are diverse paths to womanhood. I would also note that TERF is itself a contradiction in terms; there is no such thing as uninclusive feminism.” (web)
Alicia Rebecca Myers: “Reading about Trump’s proposed high tariffs made me reflect on the high stakes of this election. It still astounds me that what one person finds beautiful is at the root of another person’s fear.” (web)
Stephen Kessler: “When I started writing poems in earnest, as a teenager, I had no use for free verse, but the formal structures and rhythms of English poetry—especially that of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats—provided the models for my own earliest efforts. In time I became more ‘contemporary’ in my approach to form, opening up to more unpredictable lyric structures, but my ear had been trained to hear rhythm and rhyme in a way that continues to serve me more than 40 years later. These sonnets were written during what could be called a cool-off lap after translating about 70 sonnets by Borges for his complete sonnets, to be published in 2010 by Penguin. While they are not formal sonnets in the strictest sense, I think they are close enough to give an illusion of sonnetude.” (web)
Eric Nelson: “The first poet I discovered on my own (by way of Simon and Garfunkel’s take on ‘Richard Cory’) was E.A. Robinson. I loved his piercing character sketches and his tight, restrained language. The first villanelle I ever read was probably Robinson’s ‘The House on the Hill.’ I didn’t know it was called a villanelle, but I was fascinated by the pattern of repetition and the irony of saying over and over again that ‘there is nothing more to say.’ I wasn’t consciously thinking of ‘The House on the Hill’ when I wrote ‘Louder,’ but it’s easy to see parallels. Such, I guess, is the enduring influence of early loves.” (web)
